Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 26, 2004
China kicks off its lunar probe project
China's lunar probe program enters formal practice on Feb. 25, as Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense announced on Wednesday.
China's lunar probe program enters formal practice on Feb. 25, as Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense announced on Wednesday.
After long-period complete preparations and verification, the spotlight of lunar probe program has been approved by the national authority. On Feb. 25, the group dedicated to the program under the Commission of Science Technology and Industry for National Defense held the first conference on Wendnesday, announcing the formal operation of the program.
Sun Laiyan, Secretary-in-Chief of the commission and deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said China's Moon probe plan is composed of "orbit, landing and return", three unmanned processes. Presently the goal of the first-phase project is to launch the first satellite to orbit the Moon by 2007 with total investment of 1.4 billion yuan.
According to Sun, after the first-phase project, it is preliminarily planned to launch unmanned probe vehicle to the Moon by 2010. The third phase, is to complete collecting lunar soil by 2020. He said, the lunar probe program is China's important step toward deep space. The Moon, 380,000 KMs away from the Earth provides a precious platform for human beings' probe into deep space.